REICH'S KISS-AND-SHRUG

By Ann Blackman

It turns out that Robert B. Reich, the former Secretary of Labor and soulmate of Bill Clinton, kept a diary. That's unusual in the subpoena-happy capital, and so is the tone of his kiss-and-shrug memoir--a bittersweet but ultimately forgiving account of his four years in Washington. In Locked in the Cabinet, to be published this month by Knopf, Reich describes his constant appeals to Clinton's conscience against the stronger pull of such personalities as then Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and presidential adviser Dick Morris.

When Reich is worried that his memos are not getting through to the President, it is the First Lady who offers a back channel. "Send them to me," she says. "I'll see that they get to him. Use blank sheets of paper without any letterhead or other identifying characteristics. Just the date and your initials." Writes Reich: "Now I have my own loop." But of course, he didn't really. At one point, Reich describes waiting in a small anteroom outside the Oval Office with economic advisers Robert Rubin, Laura D'Andrea Tyson and Gene Sperling, only to learn from CNN that Clinton had fired chief of staff Mack McLarty. "Our distress has nothing to do with the merits of the decision...What's so galling is that the decisions were made without any of us having a clue...At this moment we are inches away from the Oval, and yet we might as well be in Tahiti."

In their final Oval Office meeting, Reich describes Clinton's attempt to reach out to his old liberal friend: "'We tried, didn't we? We did some good things.' 'Oh yeah,' I say quickly. 'And you'll have four more years to do even more.' I force a smile." Clinton gives him a bear hug. Reich's book is a more complicated embrace.

--By Ann Blackman